Santa didn't come to our house till the day after Christmas. Whats up with that? Well, with a family our size and with all the different schedules, Sunday just seem to work out best for all 21 of us. My sweet sister Laura and her husband Ken came to Arizona from Pennsylvania for the upcoming birth of a new grand-daughter. It was so convenient for us because it would allow us to celebrate Christmas together which we haven't been able to do for 28 years. With all our children & grand-children we fill up the house and we did just that on the Sunday after Christmas. Laura and I have a bunch of good kids. They all married wonderful people and we couldn't be more happier. For Christmas, we knew Santa was going to come and we didn't think to many would mind that he was a day late. We wanted to Honor the Adult children with an ornament just for them. For example: Karen, we gave her this note attached to a Peace ornament made up with little beads glued to the letters.
Karen wants Love and Happiness
for all those around her
She is the Peacemaker
And for Jennifer, we gave her this note attached to a beautiful gold 3 demensional star.
She loves deeply and cares for
all those around her.
Her dreams are real and beautiful.
Jennifer is Passionate
We gave each adult an attribute that was just perfect for them. It was giving to them via Santa's red bag after, of course, all the kids receive their Santa gift. Santa made it comical at times but as he read the Attribute, I think it was much appreciated. I do know that Laura and I had the best time because we enjoyed so much the time we had together as we prepared this gift's for our children. Happy Holiday's Everyone!!!!!

Here is Grandson #2. The 2nd of 3 that was going to come in a 3 month period. He is adorable! His name is Enoch and he is the 2nd child for my son Brandon and his wife Ann. Needless to say, I am a tickled grandmother. Next one comes in January!

Enjoy!

I have been a little behind on my Layer Cake Sampler blocks but because I have been sick the last few days and had to stay home from work, I took the opportunity to play catch up. Easy to do since they are not real time consuming. This is block #2. Its not quite like the pattern but because of said illness, I opted out of cutting more fabric to make it "identical" to the pattern.

Block #3. I never really thought basket blocks were all they cool, but I sort of like mine. Maybe this will inspire me to do other basket patterns in the future.

And block #4. I really like the added corner feature in the snowball block. Way cool!

For any of you that have not seen the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along and now the current Layer Cake Sampler Quilt Along, its not to late to start creating and join in the fun. Hit the side button on the right and it will take you where you need to go.

Enjoy!

I always seem to the pictures in the reverse order that I intended them to be. Oh Well!

I finally get to post the 3rd baby quilt, which was the 2nd to be completed and is for Courtney and her baby Ryder. She has a jungle animal theme for her nursery so the Ryder's quilt had to follow suit. I found all of these fabrics at Hobby Lobby so if you are interested, you can find them online as well. My sister Laura and I made these at the same time when she was here visiting me. Hers went to her daughter Jennifer. She actually got 2 of them, one of which is in a beautiful arrangement of pink flowers for her 1st grand-daughter. She needs to start her own blog and show off her beautiful creations.

I should of took a photo of the backside. Its white with all the little jungle animals on it and the prints on the front side which you see, represent all the animals on the back side. But, here is a close up of the prints and the boarder of prairie points!

The pattern is on Moda Bakeshop, and you can find it here.

I sure hope they enjoy it. I know that I do. Ryder is really not expected to come till January so it will be a little while before I can post his picture. You saw grandson #1, born Nov. 29th and grandson #2 still has not made his grand entrance yet. One of these days, I'll post a post with all 3 so I can just brag!

This cute baby quilt is quilt #51. Finally being allow to be posted after quilt #52 got to. :)

Enjoy!

When I decided to try and consolidate my "crafty" things all into one room I found a stash of yarn that was leftovers from other projects from when I used to crochet a lot. Because I can't seem to throw things away, I decided to make covered hangers, which I love!, and dishcloths. The photos don't justify the numbers made. I probably did about 12 hangers and now I am up to about 15 dishcloths. I don't usually use cotton yarn dishcloths, but I now have started because I made them and it has to be put to use or

why even bother making them in the first place. Its been a nice project to do while watching T.V. & I have discovered that they are kind of nice to use.

My hangers I adore because none of my clothes slip off of them and then I like to use them for hanging up my wash only clothes. I still have lots of quilt projects that I am working on, but this has been a nice change!

Enjoy!

Here is the newest member of my family. Little Jaxon was born Nov. 29th and me, the proud grandmother, went and spent a few days visiting this new pride and joy! Had to come back home though and it was pretty tough leaving them but Stephen and Jodi, the parents, will be fantastic parents. Its so fun watching new parents become parents and good ones they will be. Lucky for me, they are only about 5 hours away and it won't be too long before grandma can see him again.

I do have another grandson that was due last Saturday so it won't be long before I get to post another photo of him. Lucky Me.

Have you ever made a quilt out of a

Shower Curtain?

My friend Robbie's daughter fell in love with this old tree and wanted it for her bed. Robbie ask if I thought it was possible to make a quilt with it and at first I thought how strange that was. But from looking at the curtain and realizing it was just another kind of fabric and not the "plastic lining" I thought why not!

I cut off the buttonholes off the top and added the triple boarder to jazz it up and wha la, it works! Needless to say, her daughter just loves it. I only did a simple diagonal quilt lines since I really have never work with a whole piece of fabric before and I was afraid of bunching up even with the zillion safety pins that I had on it. The second photo shows a 22 inch pillow, without the pillow in it, to add to her decor. This is quilt #53

Now I am off to San Diego to see my new grandson Jaxon! Photos will come soon

Enjoy!

Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

to all my family, friends and fellow bloggers.

As you know from my profile I am about to be a grandmother to "3" new grandsons. I am so tickled I can hardly stand it. One of these precious gems will be coming any minute and I can tell you that I anxiously watch the caller ID on my phone every time it rings! My son Stephen and his wife in San Diego will be having Jaxon and I made him a quilt that I gave his mother at her baby shower a few weeks back. I have posted about his quilt already but you can go Here to view it again.

Now, the 3rd grandson's quilt is already made and I can't show you it because I know that his mother will see it on the blog. That is quilt#52 and I don't know why I made it before grandson #2. Her baby shower was yesterday so now I can show you Enochs quilt. Enochs mother Ann wanted to use Tigers as her theme for the son. I had a difficult time finding anything that I liked that had tigers without all the other animals. Most of the time it would be a lion or jaguar and not a tiger. So I decided to build a quilt around a tiger print. I will admit that it really doesn't look like a baby baby quilt and I almost started over and do something else. Those who did see it that was what Ann would like so I decided to give it her anyways. What do you think?

Enjoy!

I meant to post about these cute little pumpkins a few weeks ago!

We made these before Halloween, took pumpkin family photos with all of the pumpkins that my sister, her daughter my daughter and myself made. I somehow lost the pictures, which makes me upset because we must of made at least 14-15 of these cuties. We had a pumpkin patch all over my table. I love pumpkins and I am a fan of regular ones rather then the Jack O'Lantern that you see earlier in the fall season. If you would like to see how they are made go here to get a tutorial. You will be surprised at how easy they are to make.

Enjoy!

Blogger Quilt Festival

Decided to post a photo of a quilt that I made for my son Chase about 1-1/2 - 2 years ago as a memory quilt for his 2 years in South Africa. He sent me some fabric from South Africa with all the panels of the large animals native to the area. I held on the fabric for a while with the intention to do something when I came along a pattern to do the middle with batiks. I thought it would go quite well with the theme of the quilt. I was also quite tickled when I was asked if it could hang in a quilt display in the Gilbert Ariz. museum for awhile. Chase really enjoys this quilt and I hope it reminds him about his time there with fond memories. The interior portion of the quilt was a stack and whack type of thing, which I had never done. It was really fun to watch all the colors blend together and then boarder with the black to make it stand out.

You need to go over to Amy's Creative Side to see the Fall Blogger Festival of quilts and browse around and see all the beautiful quilts.

Enjoy! (again)

Here is my first block for my Layer Cake Sampler Quilt Along. I was going to wait and post this photo after I got a couple of the others done and then do it at the same time. But - I somehow lost a couple of photos that I was going to post on so I decided to just post this one anyways. I'll have to retake the photos and try later for those other things.

If you want to make this block - go over to Moose on the Porch and join in! Click on the button on the left side of my blog.

Enjoy!

Here's another quick goody that I made for myself when my sister was in town. She showed me how easy it was to make a cover for my scriptures. The pattern would be so wonderful for different books like journals that my daughter and I will be making some for gifts! You can find it here on the Moda Bakeshop website.

Enjoy!

This last week has been a fabulous week! My sister Laura from Pennsylvania came out to visit me to do some quilt stuff and other crafty fun and boy did we get a lot done. She also came to visit her daughters family here and she is probably getting much needed rest from our adventurous and exhausting week! Normally, both of us agree that quilting is rather relaxing activity, but not at the pace we did! It was indeed rewarding and loads of FUN!

So here we are showing off our newest joint project! This cornucopia pattern was in the last Quilt Sampler magazine. It normally was created with using felted wool and was beautiful. We decided to use batiks because we wanted it to blend this with a earlier fall quilt hanging we did a couple years ago and plus the fact we didn't want to invest in wool just quite yet! Maybe some day I will do something with felted wool. I have added some bead work to the tendrils since photographing this.

This will be Quilt project #50. The next couple of days I will show off quilt #51 that we also did this week and then I'll show other crafty fun as well! Back to work tomorrow!

Enjoy!

Here is the finished Project. This t- shirt quilt will be quilt #49 for me and the first t-shirt quilt that I have done. It was a new challenge for me and I learned a lot from doing this. It was definitely a fun thing to be creative with all the different blocks, utilizing fabric that were both from t-shirts and from the scarfs that were made to fit around each dogs neck.

As you can see, this quilt is going to belong to a member of the Arizona Golden Retriever Connection organization. I sure hope she enjoys it.
This is just another close up of an individual block with appliqued blocks on the bottom corners.

Enjoy!

P.S. I don't know why I didn't move that Frisbee out the picture before I shot the picture, its probably been there so long that I didn't even notice it until it was too late. Oh Well!

Here are some updates on the T-shirt quilt that I am working on.

You see it all ready for the layers to be pinned and trimmed.

This cute label will be added on later after all the signatures get on. Do you like the bones?

This photo shows the bottom sashing and boarder with another t-shirt built in with a quote my customer wanted put in. You don't see it the first photo, I am having a hard time getting up high enough to photo the whole quilt.

Enjoy!

Been making lots of baby receiving blankets for my future grand kids. Being that I live in Arizona, I prefer to make mine just a single layer and then extra large! I know lots of people have made the same size, but I always hear that the ones I make are their favorite and I assume its because of the size. These are just some boy versions because the 3 grand kids that are coming are all Boy's.

Lucky Me!

Enjoy!

Here's the work in progress for a T-Shirt Quilt that I have been commissioned to do for a friend of mine from work. She belongs to a Golden Retrievers Rescue Group and this will be a gift for the leader of this organization. I have never done a t-shirt quilt before. Its been an education for me and a time to be creative in a different sort of way. Its been fun. Lots to do still, the boarders are not on it, and then the sandwiching,quilting etc. need to be done. Only have a few weeks to go to finish. The photo on the right is a close up of one of the squares with a scarf sewn into the sashing. The dogs would have scarfs made for them to wear which I have tried to incorporate in the quilt.

Enjoy!

Here is quilt #48. This is going to be for Jaxon, who will be arriving in November and will be the first child for Stephen and Jodi and my first Grandson.

The fabric is Barnyard Buddies which I had a couple of charm packs for. It took a long time to find some yardage to do the backing and the boarders. Just about every website that I visited had sold all what they had and I was getting desperate.

I guess if I like something, I better buy the coordinates before they go in retirement.

I just did a simple disappearing 9 patch for this quilt.

What I really like is the back. I decided to use up the rest of the 2nd charm pack for the boarder. I will admit, I like the back better then the front.

I sure hope Jodi and Jaxon likes his quilt. I don't have a clue if Jodi and Stephen even read my blog, so just in case you do. Be surprised anyways when you get this at your Baby Shower on Saturday.

My next post will be previews for Quilt #48.

Enjoy!

This week I made 4 more quilted bags for customers. Pictured is only 3 of them, one of the black and creams I had already delivered to my customer.

I have made several of the bags in black and creams which seem to be a favorite, but the pirate skull bag was a fun one to make

This Pirate Skull Bag with batiks was made for Robbie. This design is a typical style for what Robbie likes and when I gave it to her, she really enjoyed it.

I hope you do too!

The batiks in purple, red and ivory all compliment the skull faces. The inside lining is the ivory batik and is complimented with 2 large black skull pockets. This bag measure approximately 17-1/2 x 17-1/2 squared.

I decided to do something different and layer the batiks piano key style up the side instead of the squared blocks version done on others that I usually do. I think it was a unique change and it came out very nice.

Enjoy!

Been doing a lot of sewing for a gynecology office again. Here is a photo of all the pretty colors of the lap covers that I sew up for them. Nothing big about it, just hemming, which couldn't be easier.

I am off to sewing more bags today then I really need to start the baby quilt for my new grandson whose mother is having her shower in just a few weeks. Yikes! I better get going. Have a great day!

Enjoy!

I posted two posts today so you will need to go to the previous post first - before finishing up here! Or go backwards, it really doesn't matter!

I guess I need to learn how to upload more then 5 photos at one time. I suddenly had the urge to get back to my sewing and their was a lot to catch up on.

The first 2 photos are close ups of the Christmas Sampler

This photo is 2 more Bags that I made for my co-worker who is an Alumi of ASU, and they want to use this for their tailgate parties.

I've made zillions of these bags in all sorts of patterns and fabrics. You'll need to check here or here for samples.

I have decided that one of the reasons that I seem to be lagging in the sewing mode is that here in Arizona, its Hot!, and I really think its wearing on me.

Any Arizona's out there agree with me?

Anyways, Here's a bunch of pic's. I wanted to actually load up more but the loading page only took 5 so I will add another post!

My main focus has been the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to incorporate the blocks in my
sewing class. We only meet once a month now that summer break is over and so I was going to do 4 at once. I think that was a little too much for one day, so we are going to break it up even more.

I went ahead and finished my original Sampler, which is probably the last photo, and then started making 2 more. One of which is total Christmas scraps. "Make do with what you got" and since I "got a lot of scraps" I went for it.

The same with the bright color ones. I've had that little flower on white background fabric for such a long time that I made that my background and built the colors around that. I really like the bright colors.

You see here a couple of the blocks close up. No sashing yet, I want to utilize the blocks for demo's for the class.

Don't look to close to the carpet, I didn't vacuum. Whats more important anyways, Vacuuming or quilting?

Here's the original Jelly Roll Sampler that I started out with. It's amazing how suddenly it looks so different once all the blocks are in place. Yeah!

Now for the Quilting!

Enjoy!

My Sewing Class was a success! We have actually had a few other Saturdays where we tried to incorporate learning by doing pillowcases and aprons.

Now we are embarking on some quilting and I chose to start them off with the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt blocks that I had been doing from Moose on the Porch Quilts.

We had both young and old. Its never to late to start" That's the whole idea of trying to do this class so I can help anyone from any age in learning something new and that it also will be a benefit for whatever life has in store for them

Our next class will the 1st Sat. in Sept. Sure hope they enjoy it.

Off to Tennessee tomorrow morning. See ya around!

Enjoy!